Robotics Investor Dmitry Grishin: The Future is Happening

ArduSat is a small satellite measuring 10 centimeters by 10 centimeters. It is made by NanoSatisfi Inc., a company backed by Grishin Robotics.

In its first year of investing, Grishin Robotics, a $25 million seed-investment fund, has evaluated more than 600 startups in the personal robotics space, a number that staggered the fund’s founder Dmitry Grishin, chief executive of Russia’s largest Internet company Mail.Ru Group Ltd., who launched the fund using his personal money.

“There’s definitely demand for robotics investments in the market,” said Mr. Grishin, who added that the space is just beginning to gain traction, so the number of projects already under way surprised him. One of the Grishin Robotics’ portfolio companies Bolt.io, a Boston-based incubator for hardware startups, received 850 applications for its first batch of startups incoming to its program, according to Grishin Robotics.

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